Procurement Goals Don’t Achieve Themselves – Here’s how Contract Management Tools can get you right on track.

Already set your new financial year procurement goals? Well, once you have (like finally not missing that contract expiry), you need the contract management tools to help you get there.

The right piece of software can transform your new year ambitions into success. “By promoting our contract management tools, we are determined to get organisations the procurement results they desire – and let them add value back in to the business,” says our Business Development Manager, James Cole.

“Understanding how software solutions can transform overwhelming data from a spreadsheet into visible activities and reports means organisations can finally gain the control, compliance and savings they long for,” he continues.

What contract management tools are helping organisations up their procurement game? Let’s break it down.

Contracts Repository

Missing information and duplicated numbers can be a nightmare during your procurement process. With an efficient contract repository you can ensure nothing gets missed. This contracts management tool will store all the information you need in a Register of Contracts. James says, “Getting your contracts data and documents together in one place for improved visibility will improve a procurement team’s decision making, and enable collaboratively working by reduces errors and improving everyone’s visibility of the process throughout, helping reduce chase up times and generating longer supplier negotiations.”

Contracts repositories can even provide an audit trail by enabling you to forge links to departments and suppliers so you can see the contract life cycle right at your finger-tips.

Alerts, Notifications and Escalations Process

It is less hassle to stay put than make a change, but failing to review your supplier agreements could potentially make you miss out on a more competitive deal. Alerts, notifications and an escalations process is the perfect comtract management tool to allow you to alert you or a colleague or a manager, to make sure that nothing gets missed be sending an email or SMS message and alert a team to matters which require urgent attention.

“Organisations can have hundreds of contracts in place that can easily be ignored or forgotten about but with the lack of an efficient and effective process, auto-renewing can become a real issue and contracts can be locked for another year creating unintentional spend,” says James.

Document Storage for Compliance

With more and more compliance requirements being placed on organisations, James knows businesses are looking for a tool that can provide instant control and visibility that doesn’t seem to exist out on the market. Document storage and digital asset management, is a great contract management tool for procurement teams as they can upload relevant documents to each stage of a contract and keep track on its performance. The contract management tool aids organisations by recording and managing contracts and supplier information, audit results, insurance certificates and more…

“Organisations shouldn’t be risking being non-compliant,” says James, “Compliance in your procurement process will ensure nothing slips under the cracks, that will resurface later to pull you back from reaching your procurement goals. A good handful of efficient and effective contract management tolls is making sure you can keep on track.” he adds.